Pentax Optio W60 10 MP Waterproof Digital Camera with 5x Optical Zoom and 2 5 inch LCD Pink

Take your Pentax Optio W60 to new extremes. With 10 megapixels and a 5x internal zoom, this waterproof Optio shoots deeper, wider and at colder temps. A new design allows the Optio W60 to operate up to 13 feet underwater for two hours and at extreme temperatures well below freezing. Perfect for photography in adventurous settings, the Optio W60 captures a wide variety of scenes including expansive landscapes, architecture, and group photos in confined spaces as well as close-up telephoto shots. The Optio W60 also feature high-quality movie mode, face recognition, smile capture, and blink detection.

User Ratings and Reviews

2 Stars Not as good as the Optio W10
My Optio W10 died on me, and while it had it’s faults it was a good reliable camera. The W60 has some of the same complaints (slow to take pics, not good in low light, etc) but the images are even worse than the W10. I wouldn’t recommend this camera. I haven’t used the waterproof feature yet…plan on doing that in a couple weeks at the beach.

2 Stars Disappointing. Poor followon to the W10

I bought the W60 early this summer when my W10 was damaged in an accident. I am extremely disappointed in the W60.

The user interface is basically fine, but I find it hard to press the separate buttons (I always feel fat-fingered on it). The W10 in contrast was much easier to manipulate.

The waterproof housing is noticeably improved over the W10.

The battery has almost no lifespan. I get about 60 pictures (no flash) before I have to recharge it. Even more annoying, the battery doesn’t sit terribly well in the recharger, so you have to be careful to ensure that it’s actually recharging. I find it *exceedingly* annoying that you can’t recharge this camera from the USB port — you plug in the camera to download the pictures, and even if the camera is attached to a wall outlet, the battery fails. I am also disappointed that they changed the battery shape from the W10 — I have perfectly good batteries from that camera, and had to buy new ones for this; not very environmentally friendly!

The flash is weaker that it was in the W10; and it’s now almost useless. I get about 1.5 meters (4 feet) of range before the light fails — that’s extremely close up.

The focus is quite poor. Even when in “portrait” mode (when it tries to look for faces), the camera does not always focus on the face it found. About 1/3 of my photos are out-of-focus. (On the W10, I’d only have problems when the subject was moving.) My suspicion is not that the focus mechanism itself is poor, but the algorithm that decides on where to focus picks the wrong item.

About 4 weeks after I purchased the camera, the power switch failed. (It took quite some googling to figure out what the problem was, as the manual only says to recharge the battery.) Since I was on vacation at the time, I was VERY happy that I had a second camera with me. I sent it back to the manufacturer for repair, and it was returned about 10 days later. They had corrected the power switch, focus, and zoom block. It still can’t focus well.

The quality of underwater photos is slightly improved over the W10, but given that you’re moving in the water and the fish are moving, the focus problem is really serious.

Overall, I’m very disappointed. Even more so because I loved the W10, and was really looking forward to the next generation.

5 Stars Buy it now…
I had the older Pentax W20 and loved it. Take it on remote float trips in Alaska. Just a great camera. The new W60 is that much nicer. Need a waterproof camera, buy it. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to regret. This product is top shelf.

4 Stars Excellent camera for parents
I bought the Pentax W60 six months ago on the way to an indoor waterpark. I wanted something that would be functionally equivalent to my existing Canon SD 870 IS: small and light, decent still shots, decent videos.

Since then the Pentax has become my default camera.

Pros:

decent image quality

some neat “smart” modes

waterproof and dust resistant means no worries about child-play environments!

Cons:

auto-focus seems to get it wrong more often than my Canon

no one-button swap between still and movie mode

zoom quality seems lower

zooming during video has big big focus issues

short battery life per charging

If I only had one camera for all occaisions, those cons might be overwhelming, but I also have a Nikon D90 which I use for formal occaisions or highly dramatic scenery. So, for my “everyday” use, I’m swayed by the robust nature of the waterproof housing.

Let me specifically address the video cons. First, my Canon (and all its ancestors) has a simple physical switch to move from still mode to movie mode. The Pentax has a menu system which requires me to push one button, navigate over a few places, and push again. Under pressure of capturing a kid in action, that’s a recipe for failure. Second, the zoom may be less nice because of the inability to have a lens poking out the front, but I am puzzled by what seems to be the complete failure of the auto-focus when I zoom during a video.

Depending on your needs, you may weigh these issues differently. For me, this camera is great solution.

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Olympus Stylus 550 WP 10MP Waterproof Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom and 2 5 Inch LCD Blue

The waterproof, sporty Stylus-550WP is one camera you won’t need to handle with care. It’s built to survive whatever you can dish out – the pool, the game, or even the beach. If you are the type that is always on the go, this camera can keep up.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Great Little Camera
I purchased this camera so I could use it in the rain, no problems at all in this respect. I haven’t used it under water. The on – off button is a little hard to use with a glove on. I use it on a corner to take picts of moving cars. Great results. Weak point is a very short battery life. But the plus side of that is the the quick recharge cycle. Another nice feature I found, is the large number of thumbnails it can display when you are searching for a picture already taken. Oh yes, I dropped it early on from about four feet to the sidewalk a nick in finish but stills functions very well.

2 Stars HORRIBLE OUTDOOR PICTURES!
i recently just bought this camera, i was so excited to use it, and to try it under water. The underwater pictures came out great, but the outdoor pictures came out horrible! The image was dark, and not very clear. I reccomend getting the stylus 850 sw, its alot better, but more expensive, but its definitly worth it.

5 Stars ScenicHikingPhotos .com
I was headed to the Grand Canyon for a rafting & photo trip. I needed a camera that was waterproof, and found at amazon.com the Olympus 550wp. It was priced right so I ordered it. It performed like a champion. On the raft we was soaked with in the first minute, as though we were scuba diving. The camera worked all through out the trip. You can see images of the pictures I took on my web site: [...]

4 Stars Very good, middle-of-the-road, versatile point & shoot camera
This being the first digital camera I have owned, though I have used several extensively (including Olympus & Canon DSLRs semi-profesionally), the reader should bear in mind my limited frame of reference to other digital cameras. I am and have been for 35 years an avid film photographer. As digital photography has finally advanced to the level where a comparable finished photo can be taken with a camera affordable to non pros (or at least non-photogeeks!), I took the plunge.

The waterproof function was an afterthought in my case, though a welcome one. It has performed well in this regard. I mainly wanted not to worry or think about water and I haven’t had to. The 550WP is not at all bothered by steady rain, splashes, and a dunk or two in streams, lakes, tubs, etc. Score one!

I am generally frustrated and critical of digital cameras (save DLSRs) for their automaticity. I have yet to see a model that allows manual and independent adjustment of shutter and aperture, so lets forget that here. The manual features available on the 550WP took a while to get used to (white balance, shot-by-shot ISO/ASA, exposure compensation, flash mode, etc.), but give predictable and useful results, if with less fine control than I would like. Again, apparently a very common if not universal attribute of point and shoot digital cameras.

Finished image quality, without further editing or processing is excellent, and I found none of the issues with grain, washed out images in bright light, shadows, or poor low light non-flash images. The one qualification I have here is also a bit of a compliment: flash shots, indoor and out are generally excellent, without much if any harsh reflection washing out, or other defects. Remarkably and easily so, such that I found it very easy to get very good shots, especially indoors (where reflection and overlighting are the most problem). My old Olympus and Canon film slrs, circa 1990 and 1994 are must more complicated to yield such flash shots. Where this is a criticsm is that there is a gap (how many lumens/lux I don’t know, haven’t had a seperate light meter in ages) between the light level where flash is neccesary and where not so. The camera, if allowed to, defaults to using the flash, if at low instensity, where if aperture, shutter, and ISO were truly and independently adjustable by the user, the picture would be well lit, and more naturalistic than any flash photo ever could be. But as above, the flash is remarkably unobtrusive and yields uniform lighting. Outdoors the flash shots are good also, and in all cases the flash is both ample, and finessed, by which I mean the flash does not simply ignite, nor simply alter the synchronization between flash and shutter, but flashes before, during, (seemingly) after the shutter, in pulses of varying intensity/width, which clearly alter according to lighting conditions and other factors. Good photos all around.

The various modes and settings seem intimidating even to an old shutterbug like me. In the end it took less than a week to master basic functions of what, where, and when. And again, these are all mostly comparable to other models/makes. My criticisms seem all to level at digital cameras in general (save DSLRs), rather than this model: lack of manual modes, inadequate audio or other feedback on shutter release, slowness of “winding”(it takes a second or two after a shot before the camera is ready even to begin composing again), and the lack of an optical viewfinder (the LCD is nice for review, but a real viewfinder is much easy and faster, things being equal, to frame and set shots).

I should say that I have fairly extensive experience using Photoshop (and earlier, more primitive photo editing software), going back to the early 1990′s well before digital cameras were either affordable or of a quality that could then even compete with an Instamatic or Polaroid. That said, for purposes of retouching, color correction, or other processing to produce a finished straight photograph, the Stylus 550-WP largely shoots and prints without *any* need for post-camera work (effects for artistic and dramatic reasons are another matter). I count this as a big deal, since the early digital cameras I used around 2001 were not just lower resolution (MP rating is the most oversold spec besides), but full of defects: bad color, ‘noise’ and other digital artifacts, over-under exposure, distortion, et al. This model is mercifully free of virtually all of these. All of the criticisms in other reveiws of this model I have read, that weren’t based on irrationalities, seem to me to be expecting images typical of a camera with a street price of OVER $500, rather than this model, in the $140-170 range.

As an experienced photographer making a beginning at digital photography, I can recommend this camera and a very good model for people like me and for others wanting a solid, basic model that produces excellent prints (I do print, a lot, and the final determiner of what is a good photo should be held as such an object rather than an image on a computer screen, no matter what the resolution; no display commonly available for under $5000 can display at full resolution a 10 megapixel image anyway). The addition of video w/ audio (I know, that is most models now), and a number of fine details of design and finish make this camera a great package for me. (I don’t think I’ll ever get over being able to shoot away with no concern about the cost of film or processing! You’d think there would be a real surge of nascent Annie Leibovitzs and Alfred Steiglitzs out there with all the practice this technology allows, but so far I don’t see it. . .) A good buy, good optics,solidly built, dependable, from an exteemed camera company, with the limitations and caveats mentioned.

1 Star Terrible pictures, almost every time
This camera is a complete POS. Its too slow. Every picture I take out of doors is over-exposed. Its terrible for action shots. You can not move at all when you take the picture or else everything is a blur. Same goes for your subjects, if they move in the slightest they come out blurry. So unless your subjects are frozen and you have a tri-pod, your photos will suck.

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Fujifilm takes its first step into water proof digital cameras with the FZ33WP FinePix, shockproof point and shoot camera. Fujifilm calls it the world’s smallest waterproof camera.  They have proven worthy with this 10 megapixeles model of of the camera. It’s the perfect chioce for a day at the beach, pool or for your long awaited ski vacation. This camera is pretty small and it comes in a variety of colors. No doubt, the small size of this camera makes it perfect for shoving in your pocket so you can always have it with you when that perfect photo opportunity presents itself.

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Pentax Optio W30 7.1 MP Digital Camera

This 7.1 megapixeles sport camera counts on a great 3x luminous and optic zoom of 2.5 inches LCD screen. It has a integrated  face recognition and digital reduction system.  More importantantly the Pentax W30 is lodged in a water-proof body that can be submerged in to 10 feet of water for two hours.  If you love outdoor sports the Pentax Optio W30 digital camera may be a great fit for you.  The compact Optio W30 performance ability has increased and now allows photographers to take pictures underwater.  The Optio W30 also features, digital shake reduction technology.  Optio W30 also comes with both Digital and Movie SR modes to reduce blur in both image and video capture. The camera is also dust-proof, what is perfect for the humid conditions as well as sandy. Hmm sounds like its ready for the beach to me.

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